Meet the Student Assistants in Our Computer Shop

With my wife Nerissa and students Vicente, Nerissa, Janet and Reymar during the first week of our regular operations this school year.

The first month of the school year 2016-2017 has quietly rolled along. My wife and I missed our 4 shop assistants who are studying at the community college.

We are thankful for the privilege of having them around to help our daily load. We couldn't afford their services during the lean summer months so we temporarily parted as they each spent summer earning elsewhere.

One of them went near Metro Manila to work in a factory. Another spent the summer helping in her sister's parlor. One spent part of the summer up in the mountains helping his father with the tiger grass they grow for making soft brooms. The last student took on any small paying job he could get, from chopping firewood to a laborer's wage in a nearby road construction. Need I say I am really impressed and proud of them? Need I also mention the tremendous help they give me and my wife? My wife Nerissa, needs to avoid stress and fatigue because of a chronic illness called Lupus.

They are 3rd and 4th year BS Education students majoring in English, Filipino and Math. Two of them are my former and current students at the community college. They are also involved in the community newspaper, Manito's Timethat we are publishing to hone the journalism skills and social awareness of young people like them.

As part of our commitment and promise, we will also add to their training the principles we have developed for HarNeSS Phils. -- to the develop Filipino workers who will be assets to their companies or organizations. More aboutHarNeSS Phils. here.
I continue to hope for better and bigger endeavors so we could continue helping deserving students like them.

Running a business in a poor and distant community such as ours is not easy but we soldier on, believing that God will bless the works of our hands as we seek to bless others in every way we can.